Here it is, the end of 2011 and the beginning of a New Year!  It is such a special time of the year, that we are reminded to stay awake to the powerful energy of transition.  It is an opportunity to learn lessons, to let go, to celebrate, and to step forward with intention.  As I do each year, I invite you to join me in a year end exercise.  Relax and reflect with me on the journey of the past year and all it has brought our way.   On New Year’s Eve I will sit down and journal.  These are the questions that I will answer and I invite you to do the same:

FOR 2011:

How have you been challenged?

How have you grown?

What experiences were new for you this past year?

What important lessons have you learned?

What will you let go of that no longer serves you?

How have you been blessed?

Who will you thank?

Take time to mindfully answer these questions and you will be rewarded with the depth and richness of life and inspired to move forward into the New Year with more clarity.

For 2012:

How will you become more mindful in 2012?

What states of being will you cultivate?

How will you most joyfully give your gifts to life?

What are your top 5 priorities and values for life going forward and how will you honor them?

What are your intentions for your health, relationships, career, creativity, adventures and joy in 2012?

How can you love more?

If you take the time to answer these questions, you will be richly rewarded with mindful purpose in the New Year.  And if you share your insights, thoughts, questions, or ideas – we will all be inspired!  Thank you and May you be blessed with a prosperous and joyful New Year!

Many women suffer from lack of self confidence and low self esteem and it frustrates them to no end.  They want to do more, speak up more often, and feel better about their presence in the world.  Basically, they want to audition for, and land, the lead role in their own lives!

Often the root cause of lack of self confidence is the messages we received in early childhood, somehow given the message that we are never worthy or good enough.  Since these are things that happened in the past, we can’t change those events.  But, with support for self acceptance, we can heal the wounds from those events.

What needs healing is the emotions that we feel whenever we want to take confident action, but something stops us.  Suddenly, we’re triggered into a place of fear, doubt, or even shame at the idea of stepping up and taking action.  What is often not realized is that  it’s the physical sensations in the body that are aroused from childhood wounds that have never been healed.  The event requiring confident action is the the trigger of the same body sensations you felt as a child when you were somehow made to feel unworthy.  So perhaps when you want to take self confident action, you notice your chest tensing up, or your stomach feeling sickly, or your heart racing.   The body is where we want to focus our attention for healing.

Rather than try to resolve the lack of self confidence on the mental plane – with explanations, justifications, better self talk, understanding, different stories, or new mental imagery – I am suggesting that we face the deeper issue, the physical sensations that come with the sense of unworthiness, low self esteem, or poor self confidence.

The physical sensations that go with the concept of unworthiness are so deep and so unpleasant, we’ll do just about anything not to experience them.  We might avoid any event that would trigger it (don’t even audition for a role in your own life) or distract ourselves from it (I’m really too busy to try out.)  or fight it (I’ll just push through this so other people think I’m brave, while telling myself I’m really a coward).  Fighting the sensation can look like courage sometimes, but sometimes just disguises the fear of feeling the awful feelings of shame and fear.

As a life coach for women I suggest a mindfulness practice I call Awareness of Emotions, which takes you into experiencing the body sensations, pure and void of all the mental judgments and evaluations.  When we can simply observe and experience the body sensations, allowing the body to feel whatever it feels without judgment or trying to chase it away, no matter how yucky it feels, we will begin to grow into true self acceptance.  And self acceptance completely undoes the notion and feelings of unworthiness.  The realization of “I accept myself just as I am,” means you can have whatever body sensations you have without labeling them right or wrong.  We can begin to learn from the body.  It really is just an energy source that wants our attention.  When we no longer fear our own sensations, we will not need to run or avoid or fight to cover them up.  Instead we can enter into the flow of sensations and accept them just as they are.  And as we do that, we discover the reality of an openness, a calm, a Presence that is very loving and peaceful – just waiting to be discovered through our awakening.

We are meant to be free to act, speak, and flow with life without judgment of right or wrong, unworthy or worthy.   We begin to see that all of the judgments are unreal.  What IS real is you, your aliveness, all your body sensations, and your free expression.

Blessings for your awakening to experience true self confidence for women through self acceptance!

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The Feminine is the embodiment of heart energy.Her key qualities are compassion and the ability to accept and honor the process of whatever is happening.Perhaps this is often easier for women because we are physically and emotionally programmed to honor the cycle of conception, pregnancy, and birth to welcome and include whoever may be born from that long, mysterious process.

Contrary to the idea that women are overemotional, the Divine Feminine is well grounded emotionally and has the capacity to bring all of her energy to exactly where she is in the moment.Feminine energy accepts the paradoxes of life and has the ability to hold them within her heart simultaneously.Feminine energy connects deeply with the Earth and all of her children, feeling for and with them. Read more of Qualities of the Divine Feminine From “The Courage to Be Yourself” by Sue Patton Thoele

The Gratitude holiday, Thanksgiving, is upon us.  Time for giving thanks.  But just in case you are feeling a little low on appreciation, let’s make sure we are filled to the brim with gratitude before giving thanks.  Don’t you just love the feeling of appreciation and gratitude?  It really is an attitude, or state of being that feels warm and loving.  So why do we need to be reminded with a holiday?  I’m proposing that we live every day as a day of Thanksgiving as a mindfulness practice.

As a life coach for women, I truly recognize the duty and service that women offer to the world.  They give endlessly to everyone – their children, spouses, parents, extended families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and organizations, too.  Women are Divinely designed to give.  And we are also designed to give thanks.  But sometimes, because of all the giving, we can become so worn out, it’s can be hard to feel that warm, loving sense of gratitude.  Instead, we may be feeling worried about someone or a situation, and not sure how to help.

If you are having trouble feeling grateful in the midst of all the cooking, cleaning, planning, and caring for others, here are some mindfulness practices to reconnect you with your grateful heart, your divine right to an attitude of gratitude, no matter what is happening around you.

First, we want to give ourselves permission to BE grateful for no reason whatsoever.  That’s right, just be grateful because you choose to be.  Whenever we try to attach the feeling of appreciation and gratitude to an event, it loses it’s spaciousness and expansiveness.  The real sense of gratitude is a warm feeling in the heart, an acceptance and love for all that is – regardless of what you perceive as good or bad in the outside world.  So for example, we may have many problems or none at all, but we can recognize the experience of appreciation for a cold drink of water or a breath of fresh air.  It’s the practice of BEING that we are grateful for.  The moments when we can feel truly alive and present, without judgment or concerns.  So at any moment you can give this to yourself.  At any moment you can enter the state of being by just appreciating a single breath or noticing the freedom of a movement, feeling the energy within your body.

Usually, we are prone to feel grateful when we are out in nature.  We see the beauty and it transports us into a state of just being and appreciating.  Give this to yourself every day.  Revel in the sunrise or sunset, feel the sun on your back, or the breeze in your hair, whatever is present is a reason to feel appreciation.  When I engaged as a life coach for women I often suggest a visit to a beautiful spot in nature, which can bring you back to the grateful state effortlessly.

So many times, we feel anything but grateful because of some challenge we face.  An illness, financial worries, relationship problems.  By switching your focus to the mindfulness practice of being grateful for the very simplest of experiences, you can cultivate and reconnect with a grateful heart.  Being here and now, take a long slow breath in and out, simply noticing the air movement and the relaxation that comes with a relaxing breath.  Focus your attention on your heart and begin to breath in and out of the heart area.   Allow yourself to feel the aliveness in your heart and imagine great warmth and light there.   As you do, bring to mind something that you feel true appreciation and gratitude for.  It could be someone you love, or something natural like your favorite place in the mountains or beach.  When you experience that feeling of appreciation, keep expanding it and nurturing it until it is full and rich and wonderful in the heart area.  This is an attitude of gratitude – no matter what is going on in the world.  Give this to yourself.  Revel in the feeling.  You will begin to feel so full and blessed, that you will know you have much to give and much to give thanks for.

Blessings for a Thanksgiving of Mindfulness Practices for Gratitude!

For many, the holiday season is stressful – time, money, family demands, travel, end of year deadlines – the list goes on. Sometimes experiencing sanity seems like a more reasonable goal than experiencing joy! Then, to compound the matter, we often become overly concerned for the joy of family members, friends, co-workers. Though well intentioned, all this concern tends to put even more stressful energy into the holiday craze, fueling the fires of overwhelm.

Joy is always found within. In the time of holiday parties, fancy decorations, family gatherings – and shopping! – it’s easy to start thinking that joy might be found in something outside of ourselves. But if we look within to experience joy, we can then en-Joy our situations. That is, we can infuse our environment with joy from our own calm, loving center. The joy we cultivate within makes our whole world an enjoyable place. The stresses still exert their pressures, but we meet them with a sense of peace and hope. Read more of En-Joy the Holiday! (or ANY day)

TO DO lists help us remember and get things done.But have you noticed that often these lists are ever present in our minds?We’re always wondering what to do next, what we forgot to do, and what we need to add to the list?

How might it be if instead we were vigilant about a TO BE list?

Be present
Be compassionate
Be peaceful
Be joyful
Be alert

A TO BE list is not a list to check off the way we mark things DONE on a TO DO list, because Being is never done.We use the list to clarify our intentions for the NOW rather than to evaluate past performance.Our TO BE list reminds us of the choices we have every moment and inspires us to always put our best feet forward.In the words of the late Coach John Wooden, “It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.”

Choosing How to BE is perhaps more subjective than choosing What to DO and it’s more powerful in terms of quality of life. For example, charging ahead on a TO DO list frequently results in feeling rushed and overwhelmed, not enjoying the doing. In consciously choosing a state of Being like BE Alert, you will be surprised and enriched as you notice things unnoticed before. Choosing to BE Compassionate, many ordinary conversations become rich and meaningful.

Are you ready to really enjoy Getting Things Done? After all, you’ll be doing things on the list anyway, right? Try lining up your TO BE list right next to your TO DO list. Whenever you decide on the next thing to do, ask yourself “How will I BE in the doing of this?”

For example, if you need to contact a company about an error in your order, how do you want to be as you do it? Open? Relaxed? Understanding? Clear? If laundry is next, how do you want to be in the doing of it? Calm? Mindful? Playful?

Hint: Things like “BE productive” “BE perfect” violate the spirit of the TO BE list. BE careful what you choose to BE!

“I didn’t make any mistakes,
I just know a thousand ways not to make a light bulb.”
—- Thomas Edison

Looking for the life lessons in our challenging circumstances isn’t always easy, for sure. However when we do, we capture the gems of our lives that may have gone unnoticed. Sometimes, just facing the challenge is the lesson – we learn how to persevere.

Because of human conditioning to be mentally ‘anywhere but here’, we find it isn’t easy to simply be present. But when we can have just one moment of acceptance of ‘what is’, one moment of internal silence, one moment of mindfulness, one moment in the Now, there is an indescribable peace that we recognize as wisdom and truth.

Thursday, April 29 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Here’s the one I’ll be carrying:

‘Tis a gift to be simple,
‘Tis a gift to be free,
‘Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves
In the place that’s right
‘Twill be in the valley
Of love and delight.

–Nineteenth-Century Shaker Hymn

What’s your favorite poem?

“Most people have heard of protons, neutrons, and electrons – the subatomic particles that compose atoms (there are actually many, many more particles) – but they don’t realize what they look like and how far apart they are. If a proton were the size of a grape, then an electron would be smaller than the thickness of a hair and approximately two miles away from the proton. That’s how much space is between them inside an atom, and atoms are what your body is made of. At this quantum level, reality is mostly empty space… we are mostly empty space.” David R. Hamilton, Ph.D.